The present invention relates to dog food flavors and more particularly to dog foods having increased palatability due to these flavors and methods for producing the dog foods in increased palatability.
There is a continuing effort being made to develop processes and formulations which increase the palatability of dog foods, while at the same time maintaining their nutritional value. While, by itself, the development of nutritious dog foods is quite well understood and poses few problems to the art, there is a continuing problem of making these formulations palatable. Where an offered food is unpalatable, a dog may pass it up and thereby not take advantage of its nutritional value.
Many attempts have been made to obtain increased palatability of pet foods by the addition of a variety of materials. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,653,908 to Buck et al, it is disclosed that amino acids in general can improve palatability when included to cat foods, especially when reacted with reducing sugars. In another recent patent, U.S. Pat. No. 3,857,968 to G. J. Haas et al, there is disclosed a process for improving the palatability of animal foods based on an enzymatic hydrolysate of a fat and protein. Also, recent U.S. Pat. No. 3,830,798 discloses a method for hydrolyzing ribonucleic acid for addition to dog foods, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,832,471 discloses the use of 5'-nucleotide containing flavors for cat foods. Numerous other patents and publications also indicate a need for, and a keen interest in, improving the palatability of dog foods.